When Real Madrid's squad list for Saturday's LaLiga opener at Espanyol was confirmed this week, one name was never going to be on it. Rodrygo has not played since early March, and he will not play again this calendar year. What changed this week is that the Brazilian reached the midpoint of the longest wait of his career — and everything the club is saying about it is encouraging.
Five months of a rehabilitation programme estimated at ten are now behind him. According to reporting from Diario AS, carried by both Bernabéu Digital and Madrid Universal, the process is progressing without setbacks, and the club is now looking at the early part of 2027 for his return.
Where Rodrygo's recovery actually stands
The injury itself was as bad as it gets for a winger. Rodrygo went down in a LaLiga match against Getafe in the first days of March and the scans confirmed the worst: a ruptured anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee. Madrid Universal report the damage also involved the lateral meniscus, and that surgery followed. He missed the remainder of the season and, as Bernabéu Digital note, the World Cup with Brazil.
The second half of a recovery like this is different in character from the first. Bernabéu Digital describe the next phase as a heavier workload, but crucially one that takes place on grass rather than in the gym and the pool. The worst of it, in other words, appears to be over.
What the club will not do is rush him. Both outlets report the same institutional line: Real Madrid want Rodrygo back at full capacity rather than back early, precisely to avoid a relapse, and are respecting the timescales set at the start. Madrid Universal put January 2027 forward as the target the club is working towards. Bernabéu Digital frame it more bluntly — no news on Rodrygo until 2027.
The daily grind at Valdebebas
Madrid Universal set out what his days consist of, and it is a useful corrective to the idea that a long-term injury is mostly waiting: hydrotherapy, running on anti-gravity machines, plyometric work and weight training, all built around strengthening the knee while carefully managing the load going through it.
It is repetitive, and it is lonely when the rest of the squad is away. Sources at Valdebebas quoted by Madrid Universal suggest the return of competitive football has helped.
Now that the action is back after the holidays, they seem more upbeat.
Sources at Valdebebas, via Madrid Universal
The “they” matters, because Rodrygo is not the only Brazilian working his way back — and the other one is much closer.
Militao first, and the harder question for Rodrygo
Éder Militão is already running on the training pitches and working with the ball, and Madrid Universal report he is targeting a comeback after the next international break — the first of the two to return, and a genuine boost for a defence Mourinho has been reorganising all summer. That timeline matches what the manager has already said about Militão still being to come in his squad planning.
Rodrygo's problem is subtler than the knee. Bernabéu Digital make the point that he will rejoin a team whose season is already well advanced and whose roles will largely have been settled — by then, they argue, he will have to fight to win his place back. Mourinho has spent pre-season drilling a specific set of demands into his forwards, including the defensive work he wants from Vinícius Júnior and Kylian Mbappé, and Rodrygo will arrive in the middle of a system he has never trained in.
That is a problem for the winter. For now, the news is straightforwardly good: five months down, no complications, and a No. 11 who is closer to the end of this than the beginning. Madrid's season starts at Espanyol on Saturday night without him. It is worth remembering how much better it might look by the time he is in it.
